The pressure is now on Facebook to ban political ads, too

Twitter’s ban on political vertising is ratcheting up pressure on Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg to follow suit. But so far, that doesn’t appear likely to happen. Facebook’s policy is to accept paid political s from candidates without fact-checking m or censoring m, even if y contain lies. And Zuckerberg doubled down on that stand Wednesday following Twitter’s anuncement, reiterating that “political speech is important” and that Facebook is load to interfere with it.

Twitter, Facebook, and or social media sites have come under fire over Russia’s use of such platforms to spre misinformation and sow political division in U.S. during 2016 presidential campaign. That debate has heated up again in recent weeks along with 2020 race for White house.

Twitter chose to respond with a ban on all political vertising, suggesting that social media is so powerful that false or misleing messs pose a risk to democracy.

timing of anuncement, same day as Facebook’s quarterly earnings report, seemed designed to go Zuckerberg.

“ pressure is going to be extremely strong on Facebook to do something similar, and if y don’t, criticism of Facebook will only increase,” said Tim Bajarin, president of consultancy Creative Strategies.

In fact, some of Democratic presidential candidates immediately suggested Facebook follow Twitter’s le.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock tweeted: “Good. Your turn, Facebook.” And Pete Buttigieg said, “I think or online platforms would do well to eir accept ir responsibility for truth or question wher y should be in business at all.”

But Zuckerberg stood firm.

“This is complex stuff. Anyone who says answer is simple hasn’t thought about nuances and downstream challenges,” Facebook CEO said. “I don’t think anyone can say that we are t doing what we believe or we haven’t thought hard about se issues.”

As for refusing to fact-check political s, Facebook has said it wants to provide politicians with a “level playing field” for communication and t intervene when y speak, regardless of what y’re saying.

Banning political s has its own challenges, starting with defining what exactly is political. For example, Greenpeace might t be able to buy an urging people to support legislation to fight climate change. But what if an oil company wanted to run an for its products that also seemed to come out against such legislation?

Twitter and Facebook alrey take steps to prevent political manipulation by verifying identities of political vertisers — measures prompted by furor over Moscow’s interference. But verifying systems, which rely on both humans and automated systems, have t been perfect.

In one case, Facebook mistakenly took down s for Bush’s baked beans because y contained word “Bush” and food company was t registered with Facebook as a political vertiser. Media organizations have also seen ir s flagged for review when y promoted news stories about candidates or important issues.

And n re’s question of what to do with individual posts from politicians or or opinion makers, which can carry political messs and be shared widely even though y are t paid s.

Details about Twitter’s new policy won’t be released until v. 15, a week before it takes effect. But Twitter does call for removing t just campaign vertisements but also s on issues of legislative importance. That could include such topics as climate change, gun control, and immigration.

EMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson said Zuckerberg’s stance probably isn’t a financial decision since political s aren’t big moneymakers.

Facebook, which h 2018 revenue of $55.8 billion, said Wednesday that it expects s from politicians to account for less than 0.5% of its revenue next year.

Twitter, which h revenue last year of about $3 billion, is thought to make even less from s; it said it brought in only $3 million from political s during 2018 midterms.

“It is a really complicated decision,” Williamson said. “I think that Mark Zuckerberg is truly struggling with figuring out what is best thing to do for company and Facebook users.”

Wedbush Securities managing director Michael Pachter likewise said Facebook founder is trying to pull off a tricky balancing act.

“Zuckerberg is trying to satisfy investors by growing revenues and satisfy regulators and legislators by cracking down on false and misleing s while maintaining virtuous stance of being a defender of free speech,” Pachter said.

Daniel Kreiss, a journalism professor at University of rth Carolina, said that middle ground for Twitter and Facebook might be to allow political s but to prohibit targeting or showing m only to specific groups of people.

If campaigns aren’t allowed to target, he said, messs will become broer and perhaps less misleing.

Laura Packard, a partner at PowerThru, a digital consulting firm that works with left-of-center campaigns and vocacy groups, said Twitter’s ban was right decision for voters.

“This might make me work harder,” she said. “But in general, I think that if any platform cant police misinformation and lies, n y shouldn’t offer paid vertising.”